Peace Activists Help Residents Call Congress to Keep Military Out of Iraq

Amelia Lefevre is beside the phone booth set up for people to call congress and oppose military intervention in Iraq.

Credit Chris Bolt/WAER News

Peace Activists set up a phone booth in downtown Syracuse today to allow people to call their congress members to keep the U.S. completely out of Iraq. They oppose any military intervention there – even the limited involvement proposed by President Obama in response to the advances of Islamic militant groups. Syracuse Peace Council Staff Organizer Amelia Lefevre continues to see a hunger for militarism in government leadership.

"Our view is that drones, military advisors, even just a few hundred boots on the ground, even that level of military intervention it’s not going to protect innocent people in Iraq; it’s not going to promote peace and that the money could be better spent in other ways."

Namely, Lefevre and her colleagues would like to see any money that might have been spent on a military mission to instead benefit people affected by war.

Peace Council activists held a protest next to the Downtown Farmers' market.

Credit Chris Bolt/WAER News

"Iraqi refugees, people who are being displaced by the violence currently, so whether that means they’re internally displaced in Iraq or they’re going to Jordan or Lebanon or neighboring countries or in the U.S. Anyone who is being displaced we’d like to help."

Their phone booth was set up right beside the downtown farmers market on Clinton Square…and at noon a woman was using it to call elected officials. More than a dozen others were gathering around the protest. LeFevre adds the U.S. and its allies have some role in destabilizing Iraq and Syria fueling the sectarian divisions that’s led to the ongoing violence.